Q: We just learned that we will be moving to San Diego next month. We have lived in numerous places in the U.S.A., and we like to make each move a gastronomic adventure. We'll be visiting San Diego next week for a four-day house-hunting trip. Where should we dine? We like all "altitudes," from dives with great food to four-star French. We love seafood, along with Italian and French cuisine. We're eager to find SD's best Mexican food and sushi, too. Will you please help us? Appreciatively, SB.

A: Let’s think of this as your Four Days to Eat Through San Diego trip, spiced with a li’l bit of house hunting.

My first meal in San Diego was in Hillcrest, at the Crest Café (425 Robinson Ave.). It’s a modish diner with salmon burgers and salads and a great welcoming party staff. If you’re in the hood in the morning stop by Bread & Cie (350 University Ave.) for fresh pastries and people watching on the patio. Just a few steps away is the fresh, coastal Mexican-style food retreat Ortega’s (141 University Ave.), where you can luxuriate in its fine presentation of tortilla soup, ceviche, crab enchiladas and Baja-style lobster. And, ticking off your request for Italian, there’s what this paper has called the most “soul-soothing dinner in this city,” the gnocchi with pesto cream and sun-dried tomato at Arrivederci (3845 Fourth Ave.).

If you’re checking out the bungalows around University Heights and Normal Heights, see the French-style Farm House Café (2121 Adams Ave.) for a moderately priced dinner or weekend brunch. And few experiences are as fun as eating giant spicy prawns with your hands. That’s at Muzita Abyssinian Bistro (4651 Park Blvd.) reflecting an east African region influenced by Italians.

In Mission Hills, everyone eats the taquitos at the venerable old El Indio Mexican Restaurant (3695 India St.). But no trip to San Diego is complete without a fish taco. Get your hands on the extremely fresh mahi mahi at the casual Blue Water Seafood Market & Grill (3667 India St.) on the same street.

If you’re in the College Area near San Diego State University around dinnertime, steer that rental car toward 60th and El Cajon Boulevard, to a humble little place with a sophisticate’s execution of braised short rib and duck mac 'n' cheese. I can’t say enough good things about this place, which is good because my editor’s expecting my review of it very soon. It’s called the Bistro at San Diego Desserts (5987 El Cajon Blvd.).

I’m going to assume you literally mean you’ll be house hunting, not loft hunting downtown, so let’s ignore our culinary center in this exercise, and get you to craftsman-centric North Park. Go to Urban Solace (3823 30th St.) for thoughtful, sustainable ingredients in new American comfort dishes. I always recommend SD newbies eat the cheese biscuits, maple-whiskey half chicken and/or duckaroni. And if you motor further toward funky South Park, there’s the steamed mussels with fries at the French-casual resto Vagabond (2310 30th St.).

Sushi Ota (4529 Mission Bay Drive) is a reason to live in Pacific Beach: It’s pricier and better than your typical sushi. Up the coastline are places that impress, including French-inspired culinary standouts like the romantic Marine Room (2000 Spindrift Dr., La Jolla) right along the sands of La Jolla Shores (quite a view and a tab) and Pamplemousse Grille’s fish-and-game, French Continental dining (514 Via de la Valle, in Solana Beach.

And finally, I’ve seen some two-bedroom homes around the $200,000 mark in Barrio Logan south of downtown. If you’re there, find the simple, two-building taco shop Las Cuatro Milpas (1857 Logan Ave. off the Interstate 5). I cannot be more emphatic about this recommendation. It may not look like much, but for many San Diegans this old lard-loving shop does the kind of authentic Mexican food we’ll sign petitions to protect. Give us two pork tacos and a bowl of homemade pinto beans with fresh flour tortillas for $5.50 or give us el muerte.

(That last bit of drama is probably the Milpas lunch talking, it's swirling around in my belly as I write this.)

Reach Keli Dailey at keli.dailey@uniontrib.com or (619)293-1541. Follow her on Twitter @sdutFood.